Book Cover
Book Summary
Ha and her family live in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Her father has been listed as missing for a year and they are surviving the best they can when they are forced to flee before the city falls. They are sponsored by an American and move to Alabama. The neighbors do not like them and the other kids at school pick on her and mock her inability to speak English well. The physical journey described in this book is overshadowed by the mental and emotional journey of adjusting to a new home in such a different place.
APA Reference of Book
Lai, T. (2011). Inside out & back again. New York, NY: Harper Collins Children's Books.
Impressions
This is a powerful book about a family's journey physically, mentally, and emotionally to a new home that is almost completely alien to what they once knew. The book is written in verse which I feel makes it more accessible in some ways. The readers gets to know Ha more intimately this way than might be possible in a narrative book. The verses feel more reflective and provide only the view from inside Ha's mind. The verse format also flows quickly leading the reader from one moment to the next smoothly.
Professional Review
"An enlightening, poignant and unexpectedly funny novel in verse is rooted in the author's childhood experiences. In Saigon in 1975, 10-year-old Kim Hà celebrates Tet (New Year) with her mother and three older brothers; none of them guesses at the changes the Year of the Cat will bring. (Hà's father's been MIA from the South Vietnamese Navy for nine years.) On the eve of the fall of Saigon, they finally decide they must escape. Free verse poems of, usually, just two to three pages tell the story. With the help of a friend, the family leaves, and they find themselves trapped at sea awaiting rescue. Only one of her brothers speaks English, but they, pick America as their destination and eventually find a sponsor in Alabama. Even amid the heartbreak, the narrative is shot through with humor. Ha misunderstands much about her new home: Surely their sponsor, who always wears his cowboy hat, must have a horse somewhere. In a school flail of strangers and bullies, she struggles to learn a language full of snake's hissing and must accept that she can no longer be at the head of her class…for now. In her not-to-be-missed debut, Lai evokes a distinct time and place and presents a complex, realistic heroine whom readers will recognize, even if they haven't found themselves in a strange new country (Historical fiction/verse. 9-12)"
[Review of Inside out & back again by Thanhha Lai]. (2011). Kirkus Reviews, 79(2), 129. Retrieved from: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Library Uses
This book would be a good way to introduce free verse in a poetry writing program. Many students assume that all poetry must rhyme and the poems in this books are excellent examples of verses that do not rhyme and that are about a personal event.
No comments:
Post a Comment